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Why all your Facebook friends are suddenly checking in at Standing Rock

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Updated: 11:13 AM CST Jan 4, 2017

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Why all your Facebook friends are suddenly checking in at Standing Rock

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Updated: 11:13 AM CST Jan 4, 2017

Have you noticed that all your Facebook friends are checking-in at Standing Rock? Don’t know why they’re suddenly all in North Dakota?

Here’s the scoop.

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A viral Facebook post is urging users to check in at Standing Rock to prevent police from geo-targeting people protesting the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

The post says the Morton Sheriff’s Department is using Facebook check-ins to find out who is at Standing Rock "in order to target them in attempts to disrupt the prayer camps," and is advising people to check-in there to overwhelm and confuse police who are trying to locate individual demonstrators.

Snopes, a website covering Internet rumors, hasn’t been able to confirm whether there’s truth behind the viral posting, but Regardless, loads of people are following the advice. As of Monday morning more than 149,000 had checked in at Standing Rock. This is a lot of people for a town of some 10,000.

The Morton County Sheriff’s Department denied the allegations in a recent Facebook post.

If built, the $3.8 billion pipeline would move oil from North Dakota though South Dakota and Iowa to a shipping point in Illinois. Protesters say the project would disrupt cultural artifacts and hurt drinking water sources on the Standing Rock Sioux’s nearby reservation, according to the AP.